"Steffens has the unique
ability
of a storyteller that makes the reading of his book
as
interesting as a spy
thriller, unfolding the events
in Ibn
al-Haytham’s life like the clues being discovered by a
forensic detective."—Journal
of the Islamic Medical Association of
North America

Ibn al Haytham - The First Scientist - Alhazen
Biography

Known in the West as Alhazen, Alhacen, or Alhazeni, Abu
Ali al-Hasan ibn al- Hasan ibn al-Haytham was the
first person to test hypotheses with verifiable experiments,
developing the scientific method more than 200 years
before European scholars learned of it—by reading his
books.

Born in Basra in
965, Ibn al-Haitham first studied theology, trying unsuccessfully
to resolve the differences between the Shi'ah and Sunnah sects.
Ibn al-Haitham then turned his attention to the works of the
ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians, including Euclid
and Archimedes. He completed the fragmentary Conics by
Apollonius of Perga. Ibn al-Haitham was the first person to apply
algebra to geometry, founding the branch of mathematics known as
analytic geometry.

A devout Muslim,
Ibn al-Haitham believed that human beings are flawed and only God
is perfect. To discover the truth about nature, Ibn a-
Haitham reasoned, one had to eliminate human opinion and
allow the universe to speak for itself through physical
experiments. "The seeker after truth is not one who studies the
writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition,
puts his trust in them," the first scientist wrote, "but rather
the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he
gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and
demonstration."

In his massive
study of light and vision, Kitâb al-Manâzir (Book of
Optics ), Ibn al-Haytham submitted every hypothesis to a
physical test or mathematical proof. To test his hypothesis that
"lights and colors do not blend in the air," for example, Ibn
al-Haytham devised the world's first camera obscura, observed
what happened when light rays intersected at its aperture, and
recorded the results. Throughout his investigations, Ibn
al-Haytham followed all the steps of the scientific
method.

Kitab
al-Manazir was translated into Latin as De
aspectibus and attributed to Alhazen in the late thirteenth
century in Spain. Copies of the book circulated throughout
Europe. Roger Bacon, who sometimes is credited as the first
scientist, not only read De aspectibus but summarized
its findings in part five of his Opus Majus, or
Greater Work, referring to Ibn al-Haytham by his
Latinized name, Alhazen, and describing his experiments in
detail.

Ibn al-Haytham
conducted many of his experiments investigating the properties of
light during a ten-year period when he was stripped of his
possessions and imprisoned as a madman in Cairo. How
Ibn al-Haytham came to be in Egypt, why he was judged
insane, and how his discoveries launched the scientific
revolution are just some of the questions Bradley Steffens
answers in Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist, the
world's first biography of
the Muslim polymath.

Midwest Book
Review calls Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist a
"fine blend of history and science biography."
Booklist concurs, praising Ibn al-Haytham:
First Scientist as a "clearly written introduction to
Ibn al-Haytham, his society, and his contributions." Kirkus
Reviews touts Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist
as "an illuminating narrative...of a
devout, brilliant polymath." Children's Literature
comments, "Steffens deftly weaves an overview of Islamic history
into this biography. Writing for The Fountain, Dr. Ertan
Salik adds: "I congratulate Bradley Steffens for his
beautiful work about Ibn al-Haytham and his
advancement of experimental science." Writing for the Journal
of the Islamic Medical Association of North America, Dr.
Husain F Nagamia obvserves, "Steffens has the unique ability of a
storyteller that makes the reading of his book as
interesting as a spy thriller, unfolding the events in
Ibn al-Haytham’s life like the clues being discovered by a
forensic detective."

Critics are not
the only ones praising Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist;
casual readers are lauding it as well. In a 5-star Amazon.com
review, Haitham Hamad called it a "fantastic book,
written in a brilliant manner." In another 5-star
Amazon.com review entitled "Little Book - Big
Message," Brian Francis
Neary wrote, "First Scientist" is entertaining,
educational and inspiring. A great read." Abdul
Jabbar Al-Shammari, the director of the Ibn al- Haitham Center
for Science and Technology in Amman, Jordan, writes: "I
enjoyed reading about the events in the life of the first
scientist, Ibn al- Haitham. I congratulate Bradley Steffens on
writing a fantastic and accurate book.” The
blog Skulls in the
Stars comments: "Steffens has written a
wonderfully clear and concise account of al-Haytham’s life and
work." A. Nor of Ohio adds, "I find the book
interesting, for it accords and recognizes a Muslim scientist his
proper place as the first scientist who is responsible for
advocating experimental work in verifying conceived scientific
ideas (hypotheses)." And Reformistan blogger Usman Mirza, of Karachi, Pakistan,
writes, "As Muslims, we are subject of taunts for our
‘backwardness’ and lack of secular, scientific achievements. I
encourage readers to read a book on the 'first scientist', a
Muslim in Islam’s golden age. It is a nicely written biography of
Ibn al- Haytham by a westerner, Bradley Steffens. He
has written about a neglected subject that needs to be read by
all."